September 02, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Economic Crisis of 1869 After the Civil War
Such biased government support to the
private barons and industrialists usually comes in the name of public benefit,
economic progress, industrialization, job creation and sundry such fancy terms
that still are in vogue all over the world.
Some historians have called this period as
“The Era of Good Stealings” where politicians behaved exactly like the
politicians of the third-world nations and banana republics of Latin America do.
It was a time when crooked Americans,
swindlers, speculators of all hue and colors flourished leading to a series of
financial crises one after the other in quick succession following the American
Civil War.
American business historian who was born in
the Gilded Age in 1890 and who wrote extensively on the political, economic and
military narrative of the American Civil War and the period following it
deplored the moral collapse of both the government and the business of this
period.
He wrote:
“Both the government and the business
united to give birth to an alarming public and private corruption.
Obviously much of the shocking improbity
was due to the heavy war time expenditures.
Speculators and jobbers waxed fat on
government money, the collection of federal revenues offered large
opportunities for graft.
Under the stimulus of greenback inflation,
business ran into excesses and lost sight of elementary cannons of prudence.
Meanwhile it became clear that thievery had
found better opportunity to grow because the conscience of the nation aroused
against slavery, had neglected what seemed minor evils.
The thousands who had rushed into
speculations which they had no moral right to risk, the pushing, hardened men
brought to the front by the turmoil, observed a courser, lower level of
conduct.
Much of the trouble lay in the immense
growth of national wealth unaccompanied by any growth in civic responsibility.”
Very soon after 1865 when the American
Civil War ended and the boom in railroad industry began largely owing to the
government land grants and subsidies in planting the rails the Black Friday
Panic of 1869 came along.
While the economic catastrophe has been
assigned just one day of the week it took months and years in its making whose
seeds of origin lay in the American Civil War, the enormous national debt that
it burdened the nation with and the fiat currency “greenbacks” that were absolutely
and literally paper not redeemable with gold.
President Ulysses S. Grant who was a
national hero after defeating the Confederacy in a war that at once seemed
endless was now determined not only to reconstruct the battered nation but also
nation’s deeply indebted economy and its almost worthless paper currency.
To achieve this Grant along with his
economic advisers felt that the first thing that was required was to bring the American
currency back to its pre war monetary standards.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Advertisements
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
No comments:
Post a Comment